Know your English

M R. R. Saravanan, Golden Rock, wants to know the meaning of the idiom ‘to paint the town red.’

‘To paint the town red’ means ‘to have an enjoyable, noisy time; to cause some disturbance in town by having a noisy and disorderly spree.’ It is a colloquial expression of American origin.

After the final examination, the students painted the town red.

Mr. G. D. Sharma, T. Nagar, Madras, wants to know which is correct: (a) dispossess of or (b) dispossess for. It is ‘dispossess of.’

It means ‘to deprive.’

Mr. R. Sundar Raman, Anna Nagar, Madurai, wants to know the meaning of ‘Man Friday.’

‘Man Friday’ is a helper or a follower. This expression is from Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Crusoe finds a young savage on a Friday on the desert island. The savage becomes his faithful and willing servant and he was called Man Friday.

Mr. L. Krishnaswami Bharati, Anna Nagar, Madras, want to know the exact meaning of riches, wealth, and opulence.

‘Riches’ means ‘abundant means, valuable possession.’

Wealth also means ‘riches’. ‘Opulence’ means ‘very great and splendid wealth.’

Mr. C. Nagananda Rao, Triplicane, Madras, wants to know the origin of ‘rightists’ and ‘leftists.’

In the French National Assembly of 1789, the reactionaries sat on the right, the democrats and the extremists on the left, and the moderates in the middle. The term leftist is applied now to socialists and communists, and rightist to conservatives. The people were against ‘farleft hardline’ communists. Are they, therefore, rightists? Mr. Gorbachev has introduced some changes, but his opponents want to conserve communism. Has left become right and right left? Is ‘left’ equal to ‘right’?

Ms. Jayashree Pathak, Bhubaneswar, wants to know whether ‘visit’ and ‘visit with’ mean the same.

No. ‘Visit with’ is an American expression. It is not an alternative to

‘visit.’ ‘Visit with’ means ‘to chat,’ ‘to converse.’ ‘Visit with’ has connotations of friendliness.

I visited with him for an hour.

‘Visit with’ originated in the southern U.S. in the 19th century. Some British writers’ have criticised ‘visit with’ without realising that it is an American idiom. Occasionally ‘ ‘visit with’ is used to mean ‘to chat’ without any visit!

I visited with him over the phone last week.

Mr. R. Narasimhan, Moosa Street, T. Nagar, Madras, writes: “A ‘leap year’ is a year of 366 days, an additional day being added to February. Every year exactly divisible by 4, or a century year by 400, is a leap year. Planet earth takes a little more than 365 days, but less than 365.25 days, to orbit the sun. The extra time is approximately computed as one day in a: cycle of four years and this is added to the month of February once in four years.

The arithmetic thus devised would really result in error in the calender year visavis sidereal year. To obviate the anomaly, century years are considered leap years only if they are exactly divisible by 400 and not by 4. Thus the century year 2000 A.D. would be a leap year, though 1700 A.D., 1800 A.D. and 1900 A.D. were not.”

Thank you for the additional information.

Published in The Hindu on June 18, 1991